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OQO Ultra-Portable Impresses At CES

Posted by simoniker on from the oh-the-anticipation dept.

carpoolio writes "One of the most-talked about gadgets at CES last week was the OQO ultra personal computer (uPC). TechTV gave it a Best Mobile Device award, and deservedly so. It's a fully functional PC that fits in your pocket. Running on a 1 GHz Transmeta Crusoe processor, the uPC packs a 20 GB hard drive, 256 MB of RAM, and has a color screen that slides up to reveal the keyboard. The price? Sub-$2,000. Photos available on OQO's Web site. Similar devices have come and gone in recent years, but this one really looks nice." OQO seems to be slowly migrating from vaporware to a release date - a CNET News article notes that "OQO said Thursday that it will begin selling the device in the second half of 2004."

4 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. uPC at PocketThings by romper · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is another site which shows the uPC -- with pics.

    Soon to be Slashdotted too, I'm sure. :)

    --
    Right is wrong when left is right.
  2. Vaporware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's vaporware. Oqo has announced previous versions of this product several times, none have ever made it to market. I'd love to have one of them, and many people have been waiting for it, but at this point I'm not holding my breath. I'll believe it when I see it.

    It made /. in 2002 for best vaporware:
    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/ 12/22/022821 7&mode=thread&tid=126

    Slashdot should not be promoting hype from any vendor that has a history like OQO until it's actually released.

  3. Re:The website is slashdotted... by tealwarrior · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can still get pictures of it from google image search.

    --
    In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is.
  4. The skinny by tooz · · Score: 5, Informative
    OK, first of all, it might be later than expected, but it's not vapor. I've held it in my hands and played with it; it's a pretty damned sweet piece of hardware.

    Second of all, it runs linux just fine. The designers have tested it with Red Hat 9 with no problems. They haven't tested BSD, but don't see any reason why that wouldn't work as well; there's some discussion of testing Darwin on it.

    Third, I just asked one of the designers about ports. The reponse:
    "We've got USB, FW (4 pin), Audio (stereo with "extra" feature lines), 2 docking ports, external 802.11 antenna port and Power. USB is 1.1, FW is 400Mb. On the docking connector, we've got: VGA, LVDS (for digital interface to LCD), Serial PCI (for external PCI chassis/devices), same FW, 2 USB lines, Audio, Power. On the docking cable, we've got a USB -> Ethernet converter with RJ-45 plug, male and female VGA connectors (for flexibility of plugging into devices without additional cables), and so on." There is no serial port on the device.

    Fourth, the theory behind the device is to have a box that will convert from a PDA to a desktop machine and back again. You use it in the office, undock it, use it on the train, and redock it to use it again once you get home. No syncing required. It's not really meant just be a turbo-charged PDA.